At one higher education college in the south-west of England, students can consult an online interface that matches them to work experience opportunities offered by local businesses. Once a match is made, the college and business work together to help the student develop the required skills for the job.
It is easy to see how everyone benefits from a scheme like this. Businesses across the UK are in dire need of graduates with the right skills for a fast-evolving workplace. But this example is a relatively rare one. It is still unusual for universities and local firms to interact in the design and delivery of academic training.
A recent report by Universities UK suggested a range of ways in which universities could drive growth, including via more partnerships with business, but it was light on detail about what would stimulate the momentum. In my view, corporates could do much more to unlock the potential for productive collaboration, as could the increasing number of government-backed intermediaries, such as the British Business Bank or the fledgling Great British Energy. The latter is chaired by Jürgen Maier, who, as the former head of Siemens UK, has direct experience of the often gaping mismatch between the staff available and the skills employers require.
Some businesses are starting to take a more proactive role. The CBI cites Plexus Corp, the global electronics manufacturing services company, which has partnered with Heriot-Watt University on a graduate apprenticeship programme tailored to provide both technical skills and an understanding of company culture.
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Initiatives like these, however, face two big challenges. First, in the face of significant financial pressures, universities are having to double down on their core activities. It is easier to axe business outreach than to stop delivering on priorities such as research and teaching.
Second, firms and universities are hobbled by a lack of vision at the policy level. Over the past six years, England has had no fewer than eight different universities ministers. Turnover has been significant in other ministerial roles, too, and the lack of strategic clarity and consistency has wasted many opportunities and resulted in what the National Centre for Universities and Business describes as a “patchwork” policymaking framework.
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This lack of direction from the top means there is no overarching vision to facilitate collaboration between universities and business around skills, for instance – an absence exacerbated by specific policy choices, such as the Labour government’s recent decision to de-fund Level 7, or master’s degree-equivalent apprenticeships. This is the backdrop to the sharp decline in UK investment in adult skills over the past two decades, even as the country aspires to compete in fast-evolving global markets.
To be fair to Labour, the party recognises the challenge. Hence its commitment to creating a new body, Skills England, to drive more constructive collaboration between universities, further education colleges and businesses. In the past, there have been government attempts to map the skills gaps across the UK and to consider how to close them, but this was never translated into actionable plans for universities. Backed by high-quality, nationwide data, such plans are what Skills England could provide.
Four practical tips for bringing students and businesses together
In October, however, it emerged that the new agency will neither be independent nor span government departments. Instead, it will be an “executive agency” in the Department for Education, with a relatively low-ranking civil servant as its boss and with no statutory powers to consult employers. This is unlikely to drive a step-change in collaboration.
There are plenty of global examples showing how the UK could do better. In the 1990s, Singapore conducted an in-depth review of what its higher education sector delivered and what its economy needed, then and in the future. The result was the transformation of university curricula from the British narrow-but-deep style to a broader approach, with an emphasis on collaborative research.
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The consequences continue to reverberate, both within Singapore and beyond. In October, Nanyang Technological University announced a three-year project with South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group, focusing on hydrogen and other advanced energy systems. Backed by the government, the partnership will establish a “corporate lab programme” for collaborative research in AI, robotics and 3D printing, aiming to develop technologies that will both benefit Hyundai and help meet Singapore’s net-zero goals.
The UK has a very different higher education and economic model, but the government could drive these kind of tripartite research collaborations here, too. We sorely need more academic expertise to be applied to companies’ real-life skills deficits. As a visiting professor in practice at a leading UK university, I witness first-hand the lack of permeability between the business and academic worlds.
There is an economic imperative here as well for universities. With the pace of technological change, young people will be less and less attracted to doing high-cost three- or four-year degrees. Short courses, career-break education and reskilling throughout our working lives are likely to become more appealing – and the design of these courses needs to be informed by employers’ needs. Carefully implemented, the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, which the government now proposes to introduce in January 2027, could support this evolution.
Meanwhile, employers will benefit from a pool of graduates with more suitable skills for the modern workplace. Policymakers must put strengthening this collaboration at the heart of any change.
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Sarah Gordon is visiting professor in practice at the Grantham Research Institute, London School of Economics.